Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Super Tuesday Live Blog (9pm edition)

9:00pmHillary Clinton has won NY. How big will her margin be?

9:05pmBig storylines so far? Obama and Clinton seem to be doing about as expected thus far. Huckabee is showing strong in states like AL (which has been called for him), OK, GA, and others. Does McCain want a two-person race between him and Huckabee?

9:15pmI've posted another update on my delegate estimates, using exit polls available on media websites. Now only one leaked exit poll is factored in (CA). See the estimates here.

9:18pmIt looks like Clinton may win a lot of states by narrow margins which will lead to a virtual splitting of delegates in those states. If Obama is able to come out of this with a delegate lead because he was able to run up the score in IL, GA, and some other places, will the news media focus on delegates or states?

9:21pmLet's catch up on where we are now. According to network calls:

McCain wins NY, NJ, CT, DE, IL.Huckabee wins WV, AR, ALRomney wins MA

Clinton wins NJ, NY, OK, TN, AR, MA, NYObama wins GA, IL, DE

What am I missing?

9:25pmI was missing AL, which NBC just called for Obama. Clinton is winning the peripheral south (TN, AR, and OK) while Obama is winning the deep south (GA, AL, and SC last week). Obama's margins among blacks is incredible (almost 9 to 1).

9:28pmIf I had a polling firm and wanted to get some publicity, I would've done a Potomac Primary poll over the last two days and would release late tonight and early tomorrow morning. If there is a draw on the Democratic side, the reporters and commentators are going to be all too eager to jump on the next horserace story.

9:36pmJohn King (CNN) shows us that Mitt Romney has only won a handful of counties in the deep south states. Isn't this why McCain should be more worried about facing off with Huckabee than with Romney?

9:38pmPat Buchanan makes the point I've been making about Obama running up the score in a handful of states...does that mean I should retire now? Joe Scarborough then asks "doesn't a tie (in delegates) go to Obama?" Sounds like the media is going to spin it that way if that is how it turns out.

9:43pmParker asks about the MI and FL delegations. Check out a post of mine on this point here. Bottom line, if they would make the difference on who wins or loses, there is no way the MI or FL delegates would be seated. However, MI and FL could still hold events later in the calendar if they wanted to.

9:48pmSo, during the hour after Georgia was called, the commentators went on and on about how Obama captured over 40% of the white vote in GA. Racial harmony was the theme of the hour. However, if you look at the AL exit polls, note that he did worse among whites there than he even did in SC (where his lack of support among whites was a major story). Interesting how the storyline can be so different just because the GA polls closed first.

9:54pmThe NYT reports that Clinton bought about 3 times as much advertising in MA as Obama.

CNN goes to the Clinton headquarters and then to the Obama headquarters. The crowds there are practically shouting across the country at each other "we've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit, how 'bout you?"

9:58pmWith regard to the Democratic primaries, earlier today I made the point that the media will probably spend too much time worrying about who will win or lose and not enough about the margins that lead to the eventual delegate count. What do you think? How are they faring so far on this front?

Just had an idea that a smarter person would have had earlier. For the post I start next, I'll post from the bottom up so that you don't have to scroll down every time you refresh. What can I say? I'm new to this live blogging thing!

Clinton had a big lead in the pre-election polls in MA about a week out, though the lead closed in the final days. There was little polling in DE, so there weren't major expectations about how that would turn out.

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